Hey all,
I am having some trouble seeing my current fletching when I shoot. I have a WHITE wrap with 2 YELLOW feathers and 1 RED feather. My feathers are 4 inc SHIELD Cut. I thought they would be nice and brite and they are when you sit and look at them sitting on your bowstring, but when I let them fly it seems I can hardly pick them up. So before I re-do all my arrows in a couple of weeks I thought I would ask around and hopefully get some ideas as to what others have found works well.
What Feather colors have your found easiest to pick up?
Thanks
Nala
I use chartreuse wrap with 1 barred chart. and 2 solid chart. feathers. Can be seen easily by me anyway. I used to use all white but the chartruese is better.
Pink and char...they stick out for sure! I do 2 pink one char and they sure are bright!
Another good combo was 2 red one orange with a yellow knock...really stuck out in flight b/c you could pick that bright yellow nock in the center of the bright red orange combo really worked well
I use 4 fletch white and white nock,I use three of the same color when I only 3 fletch, with the white indexing nock for better viability. Mike
I use the exact same combo as Brian above with the clear yellowish green nocks. The chartreuse really shows up well.
One tip, if you are using bright feathers but they dont' show up as well as you'd expect, check your helical. If you are using straight fletch or very little helical all that shows is the very back edge of the feather. (provided they are flying straight) A feather with more helical or offsett will show more of the side surface of the feather. Just a thought.
Yellow nock,yellow dip,yellow cock feather,and 2 flourescent orange and yellow striped hen feathers on my 3D arrows.I like a white nock,white dip,and 3 natural barred feathers for hunting.
Thanks everyone for the suggestions.
I totally understand about the amount of helical in the fletching. I DO fletch my arrows with RIGHT WING helical fletching, but the carbon arrows I am using aren't very big and I can't get too much helical on them or I won't get good contact with the glue to hold them on good. Lately I have been experimenting with the Fletching TAPE and it seems to work pretty well. The Fletching TAPE MAY allow me to get more of a helical fletch on my feathers and that would hopefully let me see them better. But I'm still gonna get different colors.
Thanks all.
Nala
I use 3 or 4 fletch bright yellow or white. I mark or splice the cock feather but leave the rear of the cock feather matching the other two. Makes it great for viewing rotation in flight. I have found, for myself anyway, if the rear of the cock feather does not match the other two it makes it look like the arrow is flying out of balance. I prefer to study the arrow flight and know where it hits its target.
I shoot white cap dipped arrows, 4-5" fletch, 2 grey goose, 2 white turkey feathers, white nock. I can see them very well in flight and makes all the difference in the world when hunting. dino
white dip, white 5 in. feathers...
Chartruese, yellow, and pink. For my hunting arrows, I use a fur (rabbit) or feather tracer wrapped in front of my nock--white or chartruese. Rabbit hides can be picked up cheap at some shoots, and you can make gobs of tracers. Marribou feathers can be picked up at a hobby store for about $1--strip them and have enough for several years. Won't affect arrow flight, and are the next best thing to a lighted nock, except they show up really well even in broad daylight.
Chad
hot peeeenk, with flo red nock
I like a yello or orange nock, with black fletch. If your shot is good, you should see a yellow dot on a black circle all the way to your mark.
3, 5 inch chartruese with a bright nock.
I like chartreuse with a chartreuse nock
I use a white cresting wrap, 3-5" white feathers, and a white nock. My eyes pickup all white really good.
Bill
White nock, two chart. yellow and one blue. Blue stands out pretty good against the colors of the woods.
Aaron
3 fletch = 2 Pink/1White
4 fletch = 2 pink/2 white
6 fletch = 3 pink/3 white *
*Note* My flu-flu's full hight, Plus I have 2 arrows that have 6 nan cut feathers and flies great, just little more noise from them cutting the air ( arrow's Paradox ). going to try some BH's on them and see how they fly/sound
pic is worth a thousand words :)
(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v504/hickstick/mellow2.jpg)
I will say, however, that I just discovered on another thread how to make home made lighting nocks and LOVE them.
I use yellow nock,yellow 5 in feathers and complete yellow shaft. I personally see these better tha any thing else. My 2 cents
I can see all white the best.
Rusty
I can see a chartreuse nock more readily than other colors. One thing that will make them stand out is some pillow stuffing. I shot through a bag target once and the fletch pulled a small puff of stuffing out. I wrapped it around the shaft behind the feathers and in front of my nock. Some of the guys that were 40-50 feet behind me were asking what it was because they could all see it.
Dennis
Bright nocks seem to help me more than bright fletching, but I usually use both.
I'm using chartreuse now but I'm thinking of going back to blaze orange (four fletch) because I see them well and so do the other hunters in the woods.
That brings up a question I've been meaning to mention to you guys. For those of you that use white feathers or cresting, etc. - do you not worry about some gun hunter thinking he sees a deer butt and shooting you right in the quiver?
Bow hunters, I trust. Gun guys, less so.
3 white 5" do the trick for me along with a fl. orange or fl. green nock
I used to use all white. I experimented with a bunch of colors a few years ago and Chartruse was the clear winner.
Two chartruse,one white,and a chartruse nock.
All white arrows with white fletching(prolly not traditional) are easy to see in flight.
I do a lot of hunting at last light. When it's almost too dark to see, my white fletched, white capped arrows with white nocks stand out like tracer bullets.
I've tried other colour combinations, but white is easily the best for me when shooting in low light conditions.
Mick
Flo green nock, 5" yellow barred cock with 2 white. White wrap. I use a heavy helical fletch on Beman MFX 400s with tape & have had no problem getting them to stick well.
(http://i4.photobucket.com/albums/y110/robtattoo/PVarrows004.jpg)
Fur/feather tracers would show up real nice.
Gil
Yellow shields with a Trad barred cock feather. Usually either a flo. orange,yellow or green nock with a 9" yellow crown dip.
JDS III
Right now I am shooting 5 1/2 inch shield cut - two yellow and one bright orange feather. They show up well. I have also found that four orange feathers show well. Last season I used two natural barred and one white feather. They show up fine against a deer.
I prefer the all red, sticking-in-the-ground look though. :thumbsup: :biglaugh:
Listen to Chad before you tear your fletching off.Add either fur or feather tracers to your arrows.I was having the same problem as you although my fletching is bright. I put hot pink feather tracers on using only fletching tape.Man what a difference. I bought mine and payed about $5.00 a dozen for them.A fellow trad ganger suggested buying marribou feathers at a hobby store such as Micheals.I recently bought a life time supply of bright yellow for about $2.00 and put them on my wifes arrows.Try it . It really wont matter what color your fletch or nock is.
Ed :archer:
Bloody ones!
I di dnot read al lthe responses but there have been studies done and Chartruese and Powder blue or baby blue were the easiest seen by all who participated in the study. I use Chartruese and whatever for a cock feather. Shawn
I just switched from red and white to chartreuse and hot pink.. I think Shawn and the powder blue is probably better than the pink.. I am a bit red green color blind and see the pink afield very little. The chartreuse however is like a set of head lights in the dark I use to use blue as there is very little natural blue in the autumn woods.
For hunting visibility, I like to use an all white arrow with some combination of white and chartreuse feathers and nock. Then you can watch the mystical flight of the white arrow. It's helpful to identify what kind of blood is on the arrow also.
These stand out real good!
(http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l87/adeeden/bearhuntgear001.jpg)
currently, 2 orange barred one solid green over a yellow reflective wrap.
dads are 2 pin barred one white over a reflective white wrap,
all are 5 in shields, even though he shoots the deamon compound...
5" chartruese all the way around..easy to find when I miss too :D
I'm shooting 4 sky blue with a white nock and they are easy to see. I used to shoot 2 rooster dink pink and a chartreuse but felt the chartreuse was too easy for the deer to see.
I like all three colors the same. Flo yellow, White, or Flo orange. I fletched up my hunting bullets with wild turkey feathers and I hate them I can't see them. I killed a deer Saturday, it ran away like it was not hit, I assumed I missed. Got down two hours later to find my bloody arrow and the deer not too far from where I had last seen it. I am refletching with Orange spliced into turkey feathers.
Scott